Let's use science and data to explore trends in excess mortality. What is the real Covid death total? As of October 27, there have been 1.17 million deaths attributed to COVID-19 across the world. Over 230,000 of those deaths have been recorded in the US. If these numbers are true, it would place COVID-19 among the top causes of death worldwide, among road injuries and diabetes, and at number 3 in the US, only lower than heart disease and cancer. This can be staggering and hard to believe. Often the question is asked: what is the real Covid death total? How many global deaths have been caused by the #coronavirus? What really is the Covid mortality? To answer that, we’re going to look at what’s called excess mortality. Throughout the video I’ll answer three question: What is excess mortality? What does the data show in 2020? And what can we learn from the data? We will look at excess mortality data from all over the world, including Mexico, Brazil, and many European countries, as experienced throughout the #Covid-19 pandemic. Excess mortality is the number of deaths from all causes that are above and beyond what we would have expected to see under ‘normal’ conditions. The formal term for total deaths is all-cause #mortality. All-cause mortality just means total number of deaths by any cause. We don’t have to classify or categorize deaths by their cause. It’s just a total count of deaths. And when we say normal level, it means we are comparing against the average number of deaths, usually looking at the most recent 5 years. In much of North and South America, deaths have exceeded normal levels throughout the entire #pandemic and have not returned to normal levels. Brazil, Mexico, and Peru, for example have had deaths 19, 61, and 141% higher than normal and excess mortality has been observed all year. Many countries in Europe, however, experienced a spike in excess mortality in March and April, and then deaths have returned to normal in the summer months. In some countries, including Iceland, South Korea, and Thailand, they have not observed any excess mortality at all. Unlike COVID-19 death counts, estimating excess all-cause mortality using a standard approach across countries provides a powerful tool to rapidly obtain unbiased estimates of the COVID-19 mortality burden. Topics explored in this video include deaths in 2020 vs average, deaths in 2020 vs 2019 and other previous years in the US and other countries, and will use tools such as the provisional death count provided by the CDC. Check out other videos in the Real Science Explained series: COVID Diagnosis with PCR | Misinterpreting results | Cycle threshold explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_1Z8cSXI-Q Or check out videos about COVID: 5 Reasons Thailand is Winning the Battle Against COVID-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuh4_Tt0OHI Second Waves in Thailand, Vietnam, New Zealand, and Taiwan after 100 Days. Why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlwrc7WUUSI Check out the videos on my page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh_uOd8H4JwwAy5rYo2_aOA Read publications from my Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3RgvzYkAAAAJ&hl=en